Posts Tagged ‘Yobonja’

Here’s a thoughtful video offering insights from a number of European indie game developers about the success – and the reasons behind the success – of the indie game industry. One of the secrets is the agility these smaller companies have to address the needs of niche audiences and to try something that flies in the face of mainstream thinking.

But there are challenges to being a small, indie developer and they talk about these as well.

Let us know what you think is the biggest benefit of being an indie game developer.

It’s time to spend some time in Nerd’s Paradise. Join us at Cogswell College on Saturday, April 27, from 10AM to 6PM for Cogs Con 2013 – a celebration of everything that makes our student body special. Visiting artists, alumni and students will fill the Dragon’s Den with their handiwork and considerable talents. Admission Tickets are $5 online and $10 at the door.

In addition to the displays of art, games and craft items a host of activities are scheduled throughout the day. Check out the exhibitors already confirmed.

Scheduled Activities Include:

Character Design Panel

Special Guest: Bordin will be hosting a panel on character design, how it’s done and his creative process. Depending on how tired his hands are, he may be able to demo his unique art style.

Magic the Gathering Draft:

Cogswell’s Friday Night Magic club will be hosting a draft tournament of the Gatecrash expansion. The tournament is open to EVERYONE will be Single Round Elimination. The entry fee is only $3.00! The prizes may range from a fat-pack, to half a booster box!

DND Delve:

For those who enjoy table-top gaming we will have an experienced Dungeon Master who will be bringing pre-made characters and a quick delve for anyone interested. There will probably be a limit of 5 players.

C4 Lottery Raffle:

Just like last year, Cogswell Comic Creation Club will be having a huge raffle that will be held near the end of the event. Tickets will be cheap 1 for $1 or 12 for $10! We will have a variety of cool prizes so don’t miss out!

Masquerade Event:

Fan of anime and good at imitating your favorite character? Then take part in the Masquerade Event. Just like last year we will be judging you on creativity and skill. Display the craft of Cosplay well and you may just win some amazing prizes.

Concept Art Demo:

Cogswell Seniors Frankie Perez and Kyle Sewnarain will be hosting a live demo of character and environmental concept art! Watch as the use their knowledge of art and design to create fantastic pieces and talk about what it means to work as a concept artist!

During the Global Game Jam here at Cogswell, one team decided to create their game for the iPhone. After 2 intense days of creating the game, the team published the game Sumo Stealth through team member and alumni Tobiah Mark’s company Yobonja. We caught up with Tobiah to ask him about his experience both with the design and the publishing.

The name of the game is Sumo Stealth (available for free on the Apple App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sumo-stealth/id353642050?mt=8). The game only has a simple one button control scheme, tap the screen to change disguise. The story is that a sumo wrestler is trapped in a shopping mall full of roaming gangs of Punks and Monks, and he must sneak past them by disguising himself as one or the other. The game speeds up and gets harder over time, and goes on until you’re caught in the wrong disguise. Your score is the number of seconds you lasted before being caught.

What was your inspiration for the game?

Going in we all wanted to make a simple game, focusing in on one or two gameplay elements and just trying to make that fun. The idea we came up with was a player trying to sneak past groups of Monks and Punks. We boiled the whole idea down to its simplest form where all you do is change your character’s disguise. After we told the idea to the rest of the Game Jam groups, somebody mentioned the Gamma4 competition going on at the same time looking for one-button game submissions. This had been going on for a while, but the deadline happened to be that same Sunday night Game Jam was done. So we ran with the idea and made it a one-button game so we could also submit to it.

In case you’re wondering “Why Punks and Monks? Why do they hate each other?” Well, at the Global Game Jam 2010 at Cogswell College, one of the requirements for the game is that the game must contain a Monk, a Punk, or a Skunk. So we decided to go with Monks vs. Punks. Why make it a sumo wrestler? Because it’s funny. We named him Skunky though, just so we can say we hit all three.

At what point did you decide to make an iPhone game? When did you decide to submit it to the App store?

Within the first 15 minutes of starting work on the game, we decided to make it for the iPhone. One of the first things we thought after setting up was “This game would make a cool iPhone app”. Well, George had a copy of Unity iPhone, and Yobonja (my company) has a developer account, so everything just worked out too nicely not to do it.

What was the most rewarding part of making the game?

The team. We had a great team, and we all had similar visions of what we wanted out of the game. It was great to just have everything click and fall into place without any last-minute drama or design arguments or struggle to complete the game on time.

What was the most challenging?

I’m not sure. I’m still impressed that Madison made a whole 3D mall full of assets in 2 days, or that George had the whole game working in prototype form late Friday night, etc. But I’d say probably turning Seth’s awesome drawings into a animated character, and trying to set to look correct in Unity since none of us were animators.

Tell us a little bit about your newest game, Snack Time for Caterpillar?

My company, Yobonja, just released Snack Time for Caterpillar. It’s an iPhone game where you move around a cute little caterpillar on a leaf trying to eat as much food as possible while trying to avoid dragonflies that come to bother you. You control the caterpillar by tilting your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad then once you’ve built up enough energy by eating you can engage monster mode and turn into a dragonfly eating machine! The game has social features like global highscores, awards, and facebook/twitter integration powered by AGON Online. It is available now for free on the iTunes app store. http://apps.yobonja.com/snacktime